Dear Lia,

How are you? Having a good time in Mars? I apologize for not communicating with you sooner. Almost as soon as you moved, I joined a resistance band begging for human rights and protesting on the street. But of course the authorities were not happy with that, and soon took away all my technology.

After that, I started a secret band campaigning for freedom- in private. But soon enough, through their lip reading satellites, and extremely good artificial intelligence, the government caught up with me again and sent me to a camp where political criminals were held before being transported to mercury.

By the way, I really wish I could have gone to Mars to be with you (everything seems to be better, more peaceful, and less dictatorial on that planet) but the government also took away my flying spacecar early on in my campaigning career. I didn't have enough money and was not allowed to buy a new one.

Back to the subject, when I was still in the internment camp, Gogla B, an extremely deadly virus, started going around. (I hear it was released by the government to control the population.) It killed almost 65% of those who got it, and had an extremely high infection rate, so of course there was chaos everywhere.

Amidst all the confusion I was able to sneak out of the city and escape to the wild zone. When I first had this idea of leaving the “human zone” to go into the “wild zone”, I was afraid the authorities would find and capture me, (as you probably remember, the wild zone is for animals and nature only, no humans allowed.) But on the way out, I was able to sneak a satellite evasion tool, and have carried it with me ever since.

And so I have lived undercover here in the wild zone for a few years now, exploring the forest, foraging for food at and spending my days either in the nights or in the empty wolf den I have claimed as my home. Out here it is so peaceful, so different than the block cities everyone is supposed to live in. Instead of concrete everything, there is lush green meadows and majestic forests.

I mean, there's no people out here also, which is kind of nice. There's no nasty government who thinks they have the right to tell me what I can and can't say. I miss some of my friends from the cities, but I have made "friends" with some of the wild creatures around here. One of my “best friends” is an orphaned fawn I rescued who always stays by my side and even sleeps with me.

The wolves and bears around here are friendly, having lived without fear of humans for decades now. I don't have to live in fear of being eaten alive. And there is an abundance of squirrels and other small animals here in the forest, which supply more than enough food for the larger animals.

All those small animals make up much of my menu, too. I made a primitive bow and arrow and I'm able to shoot them and roast them over the fire. Mixed mixed with roots and herbs that I am able to find out here in the wild zone, they actually taste pretty good. Or at least better than the awful "environmentally safe" food we had in the cities.

I write novels out here as well, and I don't have much paper, as you can see, but I have birch bark on which to write and blueberries juice which substitutes for ink. It works pretty well actually. I almost feel like I'm going back in time and living the life our ancient ancestors were used to. But it's still better than the horrible cities or the prison camp in Mercury where I could burn to death.

Anyway, yesterday as I was exploring the forest, I discovered this letter sending machine deep in the wild zone presumably coming from a spaceplane wreckage nearby. And so I decided to send you this letter.

Please respond as soon as you can and give me the latest details on what is happening in Mars.

Your Friend,

Viv